method used to produce HOPG is based on the process used to make pyrolytic graphite, but with additional tensile stress in the basal-plane direction. This produces improved alignment of the graphite crystallites and an interplanar spacing close to that observed in natural graphite. The "stress recrystallization" of graphite was first described by L. C. F. Blackman and Alfred Ubbelohde in 1962.

The diameters of the individual crystallites